A Windigo Tale

At the comfortable location of the Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative [can volunteer to keep the kitchen welcome and keeping the coffee warm with light snack during the times of the screening event. At all events only non-alcoholic beverages, but mispon welcome you warmly.]

Filmed on Six Nations Reserve in Ontario and in the Ottawa Valley, A Windigo Tale is Ojibway poet Armand Garnet Ruffo’s directorial debut. Produced on a shoe-string budget, in demanding conditions, the film ignites the screen with determination and heart and tells a powerful story of intergenerational trauma and healing.

Shot in HD, Ruffo’s feature-length film moves between the breathtaking beauty of a road trip in autumn and the stark winter landscape of a First Nations community. Harold, a Native grandfather (Gary Farmer), desperate to save his troubled grandson Curtis (Elliot Simon) from a life on the street, shares the dark secrets of their family and community. In an isolated village, an estranged mother, Doris (Jani Lauzon), and daughter, Lily (Andrea Menard), must reunite to exorcise the voracious Windigo spirit tied to a painful past. Inspired by Ojibway spirituality and based on the history of the residential school system, where generations of Native children were forcibly removed from their families and aggressively assimilated into Euro-Canadian society, A Windigo Tale is both a chilling and redeeming drama.